Simulating macroscopic quantum correlations in linear networks

TL;DR

This paper reviews quantum phase-space simulation techniques for linear quantum networks, enabling efficient prediction and validation of complex quantum correlations in experiments like Gaussian boson sampling.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive tutorial on phase-space methods such as positive-P and Wigner distributions for simulating linear quantum networks.

Findings

Phase-space methods enable efficient simulation of complex quantum networks.

These techniques are applicable to Gaussian boson sampling and other entangled linear networks.

The review clarifies the use of positive-P and Wigner distributions in quantum simulations.

Abstract

Many developing quantum technologies make use of quantum networks of different types. Even linear quantum networks are nontrivial, as the output photon distributions can be exponentially complex. Despite this, they can still be computationally simulated. The methods used are transformations into equivalent phase-space representations, which can then be treated probabilistically. This provides an exceptionally useful tool for the prediction and validation of experimental results, including decoherence. As well as experiments in Gaussian boson sampling, which are intended to demonstrate quantum computational advantage, these methods are applicable to other types of entangled linear quantum networks as well. This paper provides a tutorial and review of work in this area, to explain quantum phase-space techniques using the positive-P and Wigner distributions.